America’s first commercial-scale offshore wind farm is expected to save electricity consumers in the state of Massachusetts around $1.4 billion over 20 years, by supplying power about 18 per cent cheaper than any alternative sources.

Bloomberg reports that the 800MW Vineyard Wind project – a yet-to-be-built joint effort of Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners – is expected to provide electricity and renewable energy credits for 6.5 cents a kilowatt-hour (8.5c/kWh AUD) over the life of its 20-year contract.

“This total price is materially below the levelized projected costs of buying the same amount of wholesale energy and RECs in the market, which is projected to be a total levelized price of 7.9 cents/KWh,” a letter from the state Department of Energy Resources said on Wednesday.

This was confirmed by the CEO of the project, Lars Thaaning Pedersen, who said in a statement that federal tax credits and a long-term power-purchase agreement had helped the wind farm “offer an attractive price” to consumers.

“As shown in the EDCs’ filings,” the letter continues, “on average, these contracts are expected to reduce customers’ monthly bills, all else being equal, approximately 0.1 per cent to 1.5 per cent.”

According to Bloomberg, that makes the wind farm – off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard – about 18 per cent cheaper than other generation alternatives, and lower in cost than even the wind industry expected.

“The general consensus was that it would take a while for new markets to reach levels we’ve seen in Europe and the U.S. seems to be doing this pretty fast,” he said.

“The repercussions of this are it will probably awaken a lot of other coastal states to the value of offshore wind.”

Offshore wind, while nowhere near as well established as its onshore cousin, has been slowly catching up, both on price and installations.

According to a 2018 report by the International Renewable Energy Agency, IRENA, auction results in 2016 and 2017, for offshore wind projects due to be commissioned in 2020 and beyond, signalled a step-change that would take costs down to between 6-10c/KWh (USD).

Last year, a UK renewables auction saw two developers win the rights to build offshore wind farms for around USD 7.5c/kWh; a price – as we reported here – that was 50 per cent below the guaranteed development price for offshore wind of just two years before, and well below the cost of nuclear in the UK.

As prices continue to fall, Bloomberg NEF has forecast installation growth of around 16 per cent a year, through 2030, driven by the UK, Germany, Netherlands and China.

Construction of the Vineyard Wind project is set to start in 2019, and to have the plant sending power to the Massachusetts grid by 2021.

5 Comments

On an unsubsidized basis it is x4 times more expensive than Kriegers Flak over lifetime and it is even more expensive than the most expensive Anholt offshore project in Denmark completed in 2012.

Wallace 10 months ago

It’s a first build for the US. It will take a while to work through the learning curve.

Jens Stubbe 10 months ago

In Europe project risk are impacted by wrecks and bombs as well as oil and gas and communication lines etc. on the sea floor.

To avoid that the project risk result in high bids the Danish Auctions are carefully prepared and similarly the power line to the shore is paid by a government owned company.

The learning curve in par example Taiwan has been pretty steep so let us hope for fast learners in USA.

Shilo 10 months ago

Why would a project bid as low as it could, if it thought bidding as high as it could get away with will earn them more money?

Jens Stubbe 10 months ago

Competition.

Longer outlook as just having an experienced local organisation will make for a better position in the next auctions igniting the coming boom in US offshore wind power.

CIP was created by people that was forced to leave DONG during a right wing raid against the former CEO who put the entire offshore business on track against the interest of powerful FF interests. The bloody fools simply suspended their contracts and forced them to leave their desks AZAP.

Ørsted now have a market cap that is larger than Maersk the worlds largest shipping company and CIP has a marketshare in offshore wind that is a third of Ørsted and all is created since 2012.

In 2012 Ørsted was DONG a small obscure utility in a very small country and now they are a clear number one in offshore wind a very fast growing market.

This year Ørsted will divest their utility arm and their NG network arm in order to focus just on offshore wind.

I think there will be a fast normalization of US offshore costs.

The deep water technologies are now being deployed and will be ready in earnest for massive deployment in less than five years.

If Australia at some point decides to join ranks with civilized countries then offshore wind is certainly a good candidate for steady RE.